Naked
by PrimaFaba
Summary: PRNS drabble: Tori reflects on her friendship with the guys. One-shot.


**Naked**

_Disclaimer: I do not own PRNS, or any part of it. I also do not own the song "Naked", that's by Avril Lavigne from her first album "Let Go." _

_Disclaimer/Spoiler: The flashbacks in this story are heavily (in fact, almost entirely) based upon a widely-circulated chain-letter from a few years ago, about a near-suicide-turned-valedictorian named "Kyle." I do not own this letter, nor do I know anything about its original authorship. _

No doubt about it, there had never been a better day for a farewell picnic for Blake. The sun was shining, the sky was a clean expanse of blue, and the waves and sea breeze were just perfect. Cam, Blake, Hunter, Dustin, and Shane had already yanked off their sports t-shirts and were sprinting towards the waves in their swim trunks. Tori had decided to wait a little bit before going in, to 'work on her tan', she'd told them. In reality, she just needed a few minutes to herself before facing Blake's now very-real departure.

Tori didn't know when exactly she had fallen in love with Blake, but from the moment their eyes met, that underlying spark had been present. Although they had never gotten very far with expressing their feelings, Tori was pretty sure hers were reciprocated, and had been reasonably certain that, when Ranger duties were no longer an obstacle, a more-concrete relationship might follow—until now.

Now Blake was moving on, to follow his dreams down a path littered with danger and travel…and girls, lining the sides of the tracks where he'd be spending his days, looking for guys just like him to prey on. The fact was, Blake was hot and he had talent, and that was all any girl could ask for. And Blake…well, he was a good guy, noble, and would never hurt her (other than that first couple of times), but she could hardly hold him to a relationship which had never existed. Tori sighed and flopped back on the sand, miserably.

Suddenly a glint of mica on a nearby rock caught her eye. Tori leaned over to inspect it and found words carved there, probably by some sharp shell shard:

_I want to die...Im a loser and noone cares about me anyway. Please someone be my friend? __ ' ~ VAH, 9-9-1999_

Tori's eyes widened, her face paled as her fingers brushed the familiar words. VAH. Victoria Annelise Hanson. Closing her eyes against the bright sun, she remembered the day she had carved them. Sitting on the beach, alone as she always was, mere months after the Littleton shootings had made a purgatory life pure hell for people like her—the kids on the outside, the ones who had no friends. She had gone home that day with every intention of ending her life. She had even brought all her books home. But luck had saved her.

_**I wake up in the morning,**_

_**And put on my face,**_

_**The one that's gonna get me**_

_**Through another day. **_

_**Doesn't really matter**_

_**How I feel inside.**_

_**This life is like a game sometimes. **_

Tori clenched her fist as she remembered that life. She had only been 11, but each day had still been a struggle to survive. Each day she had to seek a new reason to continue living. Each day she had to put up a front so that she wouldn't be torn down by the world around her, the world that didn't like whatever it was they saw in her. Every day was a game, a challenge: can you outsmart them? Can you keep them from knowing how they hurt you? Can you live another day?

By rights, Tori should not even have been here on this beach today. She should never have gotten to meet Hunter or Blake. If everything had gone the way she'd planned it so carefully, her life would have ended all those years ago.

But nothing ever goes as planned.

Tori closed her eyes, remembering that fateful day.

_*Flashback*_

_ Tori picked up her body board and walked slowly towards the parking lot where her mother would pick her up. The popular kids threw sand at her, but she barely noticed. She was only aware of her backpack, so heavy because she had brought everything she owned home with her. Even heavier because of the guilty package tucked away inside it. A bottle of pills. A bottle that was going to end her pain, at long last._

_ She was so occupied with her bag, she didn't see the boy jogging in her direction. Suddenly a force collided with her and she looked up to see her bookbag on the ground, its seams split, books everywhere, and a crowd of classmates laughing in her face. Her cheeks burned as other onlookers laughed. Tori sighed and knelt to gather up her books._

_ But suddenly a pair of hands appeared, gathering up some of her folders from the sand, holding them out to her. She looked up into the kind face of a boy with curly, dark hair. _

_ "Thanks," she said hesitantly, half-expecting him to drop her books in the ocean or something equally cruel. That was the way everyone else treated her. _

_ "Hey, umm, I'm Dustin, what's your name?" He said cheerfully. Tori was surprised. She allowed a small hint of a smile to reach her lips._

_ "Well, my real name's Victoria…but everyone calls me Tori," she added hurriedly. Her name was one thing the other kids especially liked picking on. She blushed. "I know it's kind of a stupid name." The boy laughed a little._

_ "No dude, that's okay. Mine's even worse." Tori looked at him curiously. "Believe it or not, my real name is Waldo." He looked at Tori, who was still kneeling on the ground. He offered a hand._

_ "Need some help?" Tori took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. _

_ "Thanks."_

_ "Hey, umm, listen, uh, I guess you have a lotta homework or somethin' but…d'you wanna go see Star Wars tonight maybe? My parents are taking me and my friend Shane. You can meet him, he's really nice." Tori grinned. _

_ "Cool! I mean, I have to ask my mom and dad first but if they say it's okay, I'd love to. "Dustin smiled back. _

_ "Awesome, dude! Umm maybe I could give you my phone number and you could call me after you ask your parents?" Tori nodded._

_ "Sure." She pulled out a pencil and her assignment book and carefully copied down the number he told her. "I'll call you as soon as I can," she promised. He grinned and handed her the rest of her books._

_ "Cool."_

_ "It was great meeting you, Dustin," she said shyly. _

_ "Yeah, man…I mean Tori. You too!" _

_ "See ya!"_

_ "Bye!"_

_ For the first time in many years, as Tori headed off towards the parking lot again with all her books in her arms, she smiled. Maybe things would be different from now on._

_*End Flashback*_

Tori sighed as she came back to reality,

_**But then you came around me**_

_**The walls just disappeared**_

_**Nothing to surround me**_

_**And keep me from my fears. **_

That day was the end of the "game of life." From that day on, it didn't matter that Tabitha Mullgrew thought she was ugly; it didn't matter that Robin Smyrna had pushed her into a tidepool one day and everyone had laughed; it didn't matter what the other kids thought of her. Because from that day forth, she had always had Shane and Dustin. From the minute they came around her, all the bad had gone away. Around Dustin and Shane, she had learned to love and feel again. It left her prone and vulnerable to attacks; it softened her up; but it also let her live again, and learn to trust again.

_**I'm unprotected. **_

_**See how I've opened up,**_

_**Oh,**_

_**You've made me trust. **_

_Thanks to you guys_, Tori thought, glancing fondly at the red and yellow figures joining the crimson, navy, and green ones in the waves, _my life was forever changed. It was thanks to you that my heart didn't freeze over and turn to stone. Your friendship was…so unexpected that I dropped my guard down and opened up to you. You've made me trust. Even if_, she reflected grimly, _it hurts sometimes, sometimes it's for the better. Like with Blake. I opened up to him, and he betrayed me, but in the end all was forgiven and now we have two of the most wonderful friends in the world. _

'_**Cause I've never felt like this before.**_

_**I'm naked around you**_

_**Does it show?**_

_**You see right through me and I can't hide.**_

_**I'm naked around you,**_

_**And it feels so right! **_

_Around all of the guys, it's like my emotions are naked before them. I can't hide what's inside from them. If something is wrong, they know. _Hearing shouts, Tori raised her head and saw her friends laughing and waving. She smiled and waved back. _Can you see, _she asked them silently, _what you've done to me and for me? Will you ever realize how much you made me open my heart? Will you ever see how you changed my life? _Because all of them had, Tori knew. Even Hunter, Blake, and Cam, whom she'd met many years after Dustin had pulled her back from the brink, had changed her in ways she could barely understand herself. But she knew it had happened. And the most incredible thing was, it never seemed like an intrusion. Yes, they had made her vulnerable to the cruelties of the world, after she'd built up a wall of protection for so long. But it felt so right, and so good, to have five people she loved and trusted so much.

_**I'm trying to remember**_

_**Why I was afraid**_

_**To be myself and let the**_

_**Covers fall away.**_

___Looking back_, Tori thought, _in some ways it's hard to believe that there was ever another life, that there was ever a time when I was so alone. _She smiled softly at the five boys playing in the waves nearby.

_ …But then again_, she thought, her smile slowly fading, _that other life was so painful, that some days it comes back…days like today._ Again she brushed her fingers over the words carved into the stone beside her. _I can't believe I actually was going to….What was I so afraid of? How could I have been so…so __lost__, that I was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice? _

_**Guess I never had someone like you**_

_**To help me fit**_

_**In my skin .**_

_But then, I didn't have __them__. I just needed someone to show me that it was okay to be myself…that I was worth something…that they cared. Dustin and Shane were my first friends, they were the first people who ever let me feel okay in my own skin. _

_**I've never felt like this before:**_

_**I'm naked around you,**_

_**Does it show?**_

"Will you ever know?" she whispered softly to the warm sands. "Will you ever realize how close I was to falling over the edge, will you ever understand… that, had Dustin not come along at that exact moment, I wouldn't even be here today?" _Does it show, how vulnerable I am? When you look into my eyes…can you see my past? _

_**You see right through me and I can't hide. **_

_**I'm naked around you**_

_**And it feels so right!**_

__She jumped as a hand suddenly descended on her shoulder. She spun her head around in an instant, coming face-to-face with her five friends, who were gathered around her with concerned expressions.

"Tori?" Hunter queried with eyebrow raised. "You OK?" Tori nodded.

"Who were you talking to?" Blake asked, looking around as if he might spot someone hidden between the rocks.

Tori laughed, flashing a brilliant smile at her friends. "I was just sort of rambling on to myself," she explained.

"Dude, what's this?" Dustin asked suddenly. He leaned forward and peered at the rock Tori had been sitting against. He squinted to read the inscription. "I want…to…die. I am a loser and no one cares about me anyway…Please?... Please someone be my friend? Vee-ayy-aych, September ninth, nineteen ninety-nine. " He turned slowly. "Hey Tori, isn't that the day we met?" Tori nodded slowly. "Man, that's kind of weird."

Shane screwed his forehead up thoughtfully. "Tori? Isn't your middle name Annelise?" She nodded again, not saying anything.

"Whoa, dude, that's totally…oh!" Dustin was staring at Tori with a startled look on his face. The others turned to her expectantly. Tori sighed.

"If I tell you guys that that was me, and that it was a long time ago and I don't feel like that anymore…can we leave it at that? I don't really want to get into the whole thing. It's in the past." Her friends stared at her for a second, then Dustin smiled and threw an arm across her shoulder.

"Sure, Tor. We can leave it at that." The others nodded in agreement. Tori flashed another brilliant smile around the circle, letting her eyes rove over each of them in turn. _I'm so naked around you guys…but it feels so right! _

_**I'm so naked around you**_

_**And I can't hide…**_

_**You're gonna, **_

_**You're gonna see right through! **_

_**I'm so naked around you,**_

_**And I can't hide. **_

_**You're gonna see right through, baby…**_


End file.
